


On the threshold of the coming day

by MoreBirdsLessBrains



Category: Original Work
Genre: Don't Read This, F/F, Gen, Multi, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-15
Updated: 2017-01-07
Packaged: 2018-08-22 15:23:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8290804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MoreBirdsLessBrains/pseuds/MoreBirdsLessBrains
Summary: Dear pals, I am just posting this to show my one friend while it is in progress, then I will put it on my regular account when the time comes, please do not read.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a porno and/or gen fic about a girl's lifelong friendship with a public work. She is not friends with a water fountain, though; it's a taxpayer funded human sex toy with few discernible legal rights! The "underage" tag isn't really correct, but I'm just throwing it in there because the girl is aware of and curious about her friend's situation from a young age.

The town had had the same public whore for as long as Effie could remember, which wasn't very long. Nobody really explained to her what it was for; nobody defined all the words they used for it; but there was no need to. She couldn't remember the first time she'd seen it being used, any more than she could remember the first time she'd been to the post office or the Baskin Robbins.

The first time they talked much she was nine or ten, and her mom had left her in the small park area in the center of town, in front of the public library. Effie was a nuisance at the grocery store--she tended to knock over displays when she was looking at them--so her mom had gotten her a comic and a candy bar and a bottle of lemonade, and deposited her on one of the wicker benches.

There was a lot to look at--there were dogs, families, people kissing, the fountain with dolphins leaping up and shooting water out of their mouths. And under a big oak tree there was the whore, of course.

It was locked into its stocks. "Doesn't it get uncomfortable?" Effie had asked her mom, and her mom had said, "No--that type of thing doesn't bother whores." It was true, the thing didn't look uncomfortable or unhappy. When it wasn't sucking cock it was watching the same things Effie was watching; it had a smile for several of the people who came by, and it had a long, familiar conversation with the ice cream man, before he used the thing's back hole. Around eleven a custodian came with a bowl of slop, which the thing drank almost as enthusiastically as it took the custodian into its mouth a minute later.

Effie soon found herself consumed by a question that had occurred to her fleetingly before. How did whores go to the bathroom? This one seemed to be left to its own devices for most of the day, and it wasn't like it could summon someone to let it out of the stocks for a minute. Could it somehow hold it all day? A big man was using it now, slamming itself into its back end and slamming its body into the stocks. Effie couldn't see that part too well, but she could see the whore's face, and it was wincing and gritting its teeth. It was hard to imagine holding in pee while--well, she didn't really know how sex worked, but whatever was happening the thing was clearly in pain. She watched its expressions a bit longer, and after some more slamming and wincing the man finished up with it and left.

The thing slumped in its stocks. Then it raised its head and called, "Hey, kid, take a picture. It'll last longer."

Effie jumped--she was surprised and a little bit shaken up, like a piece of furniture had talked to her. It wasn't like she thought the whore couldn't talk, but she'd felt like she was watching it on TV. She hadn't thought about it looking back.

"Oh, yeah, hide in your comic. You've been reading the same page for the last half hour. Just come over and say hi, shrimp--I don't bite. I can't."

Effie got up, picked up her lemonade and comic, and walked over to it. The thing looked up at her, its face sticking out of the stocks at her knee level. She sat down across from it, so they were eye to eye. It laughed.

"Well, at least you're not as rude as you could be," it said. She'd never looked so directly at its face before. It was bald, rough-skinned, bruised, and not a little dirty, and a little bit of slop was still on its chin. It had surprisingly nice teeth.

"A picture wouldn't last longer," Effie told it shyly.

"What?"

"You said, 'Take a picture, it'll last longer.' But it wouldn't last longer. You're always here."

"Touché," it said.

"What's that?"

"I don't know, it's French or something. It means something like, 'Okay. I guess you're right.'"

"Oh," Effie said, sitting back on her heels.

"Still kind of rude, though, staring at me and my patrons."

"I'm sorry," she said, and then, feeling bad for not saying anything, "You have food on your chin."

"Well, what am I supposed to do about that?" it said, gesturing uselessly at her. Its hands emerged from holes in the stocks about two feet below its head, and it could brace them on the ground, but it couldn't reach for anything.

Effie wiped its chin with the sleeve of her jacket. When this happened, she made a singular clean spot in its dirty face, which annoyed her; so, concentrating, she wiped the rest of its face as best she could. It didn't make much of a difference; she needed liquid. She prepared to dip her sleeve in her lemonade bottle.

"Never mind that, save your drink," the whore said. "I'm just going to get dirty again anyway."

Effie was intrigued, because this was exactly what she always said when her parents told her to clean her room. But it didn't seem like that should apply to a person. Well, a whore wasn't a person, but it was a whore. It was alive. She frowned at it.

"What's the matter, shrimp?" the whore said. "I'm sorry I yelled at you. Everyone gets curious sometimes, I guess."

"I'm not a shrimp," she said. "I'm tall for my age."

"Really? But you're so tiny. How old are you, three? Two and a half?"

Effie laughed. "I'm _ten_."

The thing wrinkled its nose at her. "No way. Impossible. That is _not_ what ten year olds looked like when I was your age. They were the same size as I was!"

"Were you a whore when you were my age?" Effie blurted out, even though she'd just been forgiven for being rude the first time.

"Ack, no. Of course not. I went to school, same as any other kid. Ten, that's--fourth grade, right? Multiplication tables and making batteries and all that good stuff?"

"Yeah," Effie said. "Do you want to look at my comic?"

"Okay," it said. "Some of my friends will hold up the newspaper for me, but I don't get a lot of straight up pop culture."

Effie scooted around to lean against the stocks and opened her comics. She made sure to prop it up on her knees where the thing could see.

"'BLAM-POW,'" it read. "Is that the sound effect for the superheroes kicking each other?"

"Yeah," Effie said.

"I don't know about that. Have you ever kicked anyone and it made a BLAM-POW sound?"

"I've never kicked anyone."

"Good girl. I'm glad to hear that. Well, BLAM-POW seems more like a kettledrum sound to me. Are you sure there's no one playing the kettledrum in the background of this comic?"

The two of them looked at the comic for a while--Effie had to explain some of the ongoing stories--before she saw her mom coming over to them. "Effie!" she said. "I hope you're not bothering the whore."

"Not at all," the whore said. "It's a slow day for me anyway."

"It's fun. It told me what touché means," Effie said.

"Well, that seems important," her mom said to the whore. "Thank you for entertaining Effie." She rubbed her hand over its head, and it beamed at her.

"Any time," it said. "Well--just not during rush hour."

Effie's mom gave her a meaningful look, like when she wanted Effie to close the refrigerator or put her change in the tip jar at Baskin Robbins. So Effie reached down and stroked the thing's head too. It wasn't newly shaved, so its head was sort of downy and soft. It felt nice. The whole thing reminded Effie of winter, when the fountain was turned off and people would climb in and rub the dolphins' heads for good luck.

"Is that why?" she asked her mom later. "For luck?"

"Of course not," her mom said. "We were just letting it know that we appreciate it." She took a clean bowl of the dishwasher to fill with a new bag of grapes from the grocery store. "We want it to know we're friends. It won't like being our town's whore if the people in town aren't nice to it."

"So if it doesn't like our town, can it leave?" Effie asked. This didn't seem likely. It was hard to imagine a whore not being a whore anymore, or even just walking into another town and asking to be put into the stocks there.

Her mom made a face. She opened the pantry and looked in there, rummaging around. "Ask me later," she said. "Better yet, ask your dad."


	2. Chapter 2

It couldn't leave. But why would it want to? It was made to be just what it was--bred for it, maybe. But how could it be bred? Whores were sterilized. It must be genetically engineered. Over the next few years Effie got to know a lot about it, starting with the fact that nobody took it to the bathroom. It went right where it was. "Didn't you notice all the dead grass around me?" it said, when she got up the courage to ask.

"Gross!" Effie said. It laughed at her.

"Yeah, the worms crawl in, the worms crawl out, there's a spooky skeleton inside you, and whores pee on the ground. Believe me, it's not the worst thing I have drying on my legs right now."

The stocks didn't bother it because it had a platform to rest its chest and shoulders on, so there wasn't too much pressure on its neck. It didn't get cold easily--"You people bundle yourselves up too much"--and anyway, in winter a tarp was hung up over the stocks, and the custodian would drape a towel over the whore's back.

Effie brought it her favorite blanket from home, once, the day after it had called to her from across the park, "Hey, is that a cup of hot chocolate? If you hold it against my face for a minute I'll tell you a fun fact."

The fun fact was about deep sea fishes. A marine biologist had given a talk at the library, and while he used the whore afterwards it had peppered him with questions about his research. Effie liked what the whore told her, but she liked even more to think of wrapping her soft, thick, pink and gray blanket around its goosebumped body.

But it narrowed its eyes at her. "It's _clean_ ," it said, like that was illegal. "This is a really nice blanket." It appealed to Effie's dad, who had come with her. "Jack, how could you let her bring this? You know how messy I get. And what if someone knocks it off me? It'll be ruined."

"It'll probably come off in the wash," Effie's dad said, "and besides, it's not her only blanket."

"Come on, whore, why does it matter?" Effie said. "You're _cold_." She started unfolding the blanket and waving it at the thing. "You'll like it, I promise."

It gave another pleading looking to her dad, then sighed. "Well, as in all things, I guess I can't stop you," it said. Effie went around behind the stocks.

It was always strange to see the whore's back half; she didn't look at it often. As dirty as its face was, its expressions gave it a neat, put together look against all reason. Its body was almost incoherently alien and wrecked. ("Stop poking around back there," it had told her when she first really looked at it, a few weeks after she showed it her comic. "You'll understand when you're older.") Its bottom was often bruised, and it always had fingerprints on its hips. It had little scars in a lot of places, too, and it sometimes had blood on its thighs.

She avoided looking at it and smoothed the blanket over it, from its shoulders to its waist. Below the waist people would still need access, so she couldn't cover it all, but they wouldn't mind leaving the blanket over its back. She gave it a tentative pat between the shoulder blades and then stood there adjusting the blanket to her satisfaction.

"Dear God," she heard it say to her father. "You better not get Effie a guinea pig. She'll be feeding it all her food and trying to put baby clothes on it."

"If you play your cards right, she'll start trying to put clothes on _you_ ," her dad told it. It laughed out loud.

"It's so funny," Effie said to her dad later. "Isn't it?"

"Of course it is," he said. "The last one was funny, too--maybe even funnier. If they didn't have a sense of humor, they couldn't be whores."

"Not funny ha ha," she said. "Funny strange."

Her blanket was never the same after, but she didn't mind.

 

 

[Possible other scene when Effie is ~13/14 and her pal hears that she's been having problems with other kids at school and they talk about it. It presents itself as having a very straight shooting advice/opinion style because it has nothing to lose or gain in life, so it doesn't matter if offends people. I accidentally started writing a chronologically later scene though.]


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if there are some mistakes, I typed this up in a hurry so I could stop carrying the panda notebook around.

Effie was coming out of the library the next November, her bag weighted down with books, when it called to her. "Hey! A word with you," it said.

She was surprised; it usually didn't want to speak to her when it was in use. It was immediately clear why; the man who was fucking it stomped on the back of its foot. It swore. "Be _quiet_ ," he said. He gave Effie a nasty look too. "Where's your parents?"

The whore rolled its eyed at her. "Wait," it said. It jerked its head in the direction of the library, and she went back in. She'd already gotten all the books she wanted, though, so there wasn't anything to do but meander around by the circulation desk, every so often looking out the window to see if the man was done. When he finished up, she went back outside and waited for the whore to catch its breath.

"Sorry about Fred," it said. "I think he has seasonal affective disorder. He's always nasty this time of year." There were tears on its face, and when Effie went to wipe them with her sleeve it said, "Honestly, Effie--not with your white shirt!"

She'd known it would say something like that. She ignored it. "Hold still. I'll wear a gray shirt next time, okay? What did you want to talk to me about?"

"'I'll wear a gray shirt next time,'" it huffed to itself. "Do I even want to talk to you now? You know, if your clothes aren't clean, people will think you don't take yourself seriously."

"Who cares?" Effie said. "Maybe I don't. Aw, whore, don't be mad at me." She settled herself next to it and waited.

"Okay, fine," it said. "Well, speaking of getting your clothes dirty, I heard you've been fighting at school."

"Oh," Effie said. She pulled a piece of grass out of the ground. "Why can't anyone keep their mouth shut?"

"Well, lots of people probably can keep their mouths shut, but since I talk to _everyone_ , I was bound to find out eventually. Since it sounds like you did it in front of a ton of faculty. Didn't your parents ever tell you that if you're going to punch a boy in the face, you should at least tell him to meet you out back behind the bleachers?"

"What? Is that what your parents told _you_?"

"No, of course not. They told me not to fight. I just mean, there's something to be said for discretion if you _are_ going to fight."

"What are your parents like?"

"We're not talking about my parents, Effie. You hit someone! It sounds like you were lucky you didn't break his nose."

"That makes _him_ lucky, not me," Effie grumbled. It stared at her.

" _What_ was this about?"

"He just annoyed me," she said.

It sighed. "And--what? You can't handle being a little annoyed? What's really going on here, Eff--did you have cramps? Are you getting bad grades? What's got you acting like this?" Effie bit her lip. Before she could bring herself to say anything more, the thing said, "Hey, want to hit my hands with a stick? I see a nice sharp one over there."

"No!"

"It might make you feel better. Lots of kids like to hit me, if they're bored, or in a bad mood. I don't mind. You know there's a Dumpster behind the library? Some kids will get rotten food out of there and throw it at my head if they're having trouble in school or at home or something. They'll come over and talk to me after. It helps them work out their feelings."

"I'm not going to _hit_ you," Effie said. "That guy just stomped on your foot a minute ago!"

"If you go get a soda, you could pour it over my head," it suggested. "Some people think that's funny. Although it's better when it's hot out, because mosquitos land on my face and I can't slap them away, of course, so I get bitten all over. I can't scratch them either, and sometimes it hurts so much I cry. That's something some kids really get a kick out of, but since it's not summer--"

" _Stop_ ," Effie said. "I don't want to make mosquitos bite you or make you cry!" She heard her voice come out high and whiny, and she was embarrassed. Not even just because of the whore seeing her--although it was probably one of the people whose opinions she valued the most, despite the technicality of it not actually being a person--but because they were almost never alone when they talked to each other. Today was no exception, and she didn't want the other people in the park to see her being upset. At the same time, she was embarrassed for being embarrassed. The whore didn't get to be like that. It cried and screamed and moaned in front of everyone--it couldn't even cover its face--and it never cared at all.

"Effie, come on," it said. "You don't have to if you don't want to." It snorted. "It's not like I could make you. I'm just trying to help. It's normal for kids your age to have aggressive urges. I don't want you get yourself in trouble."

"I don't want to hurt you. You're my friend."

"That's not--

"You haven't done anything bad to me," Effie said.

The thing perked up. "Oh, now w'ere getting somewhere," it said. "What did he do?"

"Nothing. He said I was ugly."

"Well, that's stupid. Of course you're not ugly."

"You're just saying that," Effie said. She pulled some more grass out of the ground, twisting it around her finger, and then glanced back at the whore's face. It had its patient look on.

"Effie," it said. "I never just say things to make people happy. There's no reason for me to do that--it doesn't matter if I offend anyone, or if I tell them what they want to hear. My life's going to be the same no matter what. Do you understand me?"

"I guess," she said.

"You are a perfectly ordinary looking girl. I don't think you're going to be a supermodel, but plenty of people will find you nice to look at. You're definitely not ugly. That kid just has some issue and wants to hurt you."

"Do you think he has seasonal affective disorder?"

"Sure, maybe. Or maybe he thinks _he's_ ugly. Is he ugly?"

Effie thought about it. "Maybe? But it's okay to be ugly if you're a boy. He said I'm so ugly he hates even seeing me. He says no one's ever going to want to be my boyfriend or husband because any normal guy would rather die than have sex with me. " She stopped, irritated. She hadn't repeated what he'd said out loud before, and it upset her, both because it seemed like a really stupid thing to care about, and because she really did worry it was true.

"Okay," it said, "first of all, Garvey Stein says you're the worst geography student he's had in twenty years of teaching. He says he would be amazed if you could get from the classroom door to your desk, but you usually can't even do that. See, that proves I'm not lying to make you feel better."

"Mr. Stein's name is Garvey?"

"Yeah. That doesn't upset you?"

"No," Effie said. "I already know I'm bad at geography."

"Well, you're not ugly, and I should know. Have you ever seen anyone as ugly as me?"

"You're not ugly," Effie said automatically.

"Oh, come on. All whores are ugly, and anyway, I do get a chance to look in a mirror once in a while," it said, and it looked at her firmly. She found herself struggling not to tell it it wasn't ugly again. Of course it was. Its skin was awful to look at, sun or wind burned when it wasn't bruised; its lips were cracking; and it didn't have any hair, of course.

But it _wasn't_ ugly, and not just in the way of something you would read in a kids' book. It wasn't like Effie was thinking about how it wasn't ugly on the inside because of how nice it was, or anything like that. There was just something about it--its laugh, its bright sharp eyes, the hard lines of its face. She ended up just studying it and trying to think it through.

"Being ugly really isn't important," it said, "but that's hardly going to make you feel better when that kid is trying to make you feel bad. He's probably going to say anything he thinks will upset you. How come you didn't tell anyone what he said?"

"I don't know," Effie said. "It seemed dumb to care about."

It laughed. "Well, you obviously care, so you're going to have to deal with that. I know a lot about people, and people care about a lot of dumb things. Even if you really don't want to hit me, I'd think you at least would come and talk to me when something's upsetting you, instead of making trouble for yourself."

"It's stupid," Effie said. "I didn't want to bother you."

"Don't be silly," it said. "You don't bother me. What, you don't think you're putting a crimp in my glamorous lifestyle, do you? I like talking to you. And if you get in trouble, I might not get a chance to talk to you anymore."

She hasn't thought about that and, embarrassed once again--with a flavor of pleasure to it, contentment that the whore liked her company--she tried to change the subject, "Do you care about dumb things too?" she asked. "Like people do?"

"Sure," it said, and before she could ask it added, "But that's none of your business."


	4. Chapter 4

Maybe it was right that she would understand better when she was older, because its injuries gave her a weird feeling in her stomach, by the time she was fifteen. She rarely watched people using it, but she started to get curious about its bruises and cuts and scars, trying to reverse engineer them in her head, exactly what somebody would have to do to make it look like that. She'd make excuses to touch its arms and shoulders so she could get a good look at its body, and try to commit it to memory, so she could think it over more later.

"Well, I'll be damned," it said one day, as she was doing this. "You know, Eff, when you were a kid your parents and aunts and uncles used to tell me, 'Gosh, I'm so worried about Effie, she's so shy and reserved.' If they only knew!"

"Don't call me Eff," she said. "It's not my name."

"It's a nickname."

"it's a _letter_."

"Well, that's hardly my fault, that your name begins with a letter."

"Okay, _W_ ," she said, still looking at its back--it twitched when the whore snorted--"well, I still don't know what you're talking about anyway."

"All right, I'll cut the crap," it said. "Stop looking at my ass like you're an archaeologist investigating a rare fossil. You're too young and you'll get a crack at it soon enough. _Now_ do you understand what I'm talking about?"

"Oh," Effie said. "Um, yeah, I do. Sorry."

There was a long silence and then it said, "Come back up here, then."

Effie went and sat cross legged in front of the stocks. The thing examined her. It was true, it had nothing to lose or gain, and maybe because of that it had a certain way of looking at people. Its eyes were like lasers. "I'm sorry," she said again. She reached out and gingerly patted its head. It sighed.

"Aw," it said. "I'm not mad, really. I just was trying to have a conversation with you, and you weren't paying attention. Like you were looking at the pictures on the side of a food truck."

"It wasn't like that," Effie said.

"If you say so," it said.

"I was just looking at all your--your bruises and scars and stuff," she said.

"Oh, yeah?" it said, grinning. "It's quite something, isn't it?"

"I won't hurt you like that, when it's my turn," she said, and it burst out laughing.

"Oh, _really_ ," it said. "Am I hurting your feelings? Sorry, Effie, but that's something I really don't believe. Seriously," it continued, and its face had softened, because she was tearing up, "it's not a criticism of _you_. You're a sweet kid. But everyone hurts me sooner or later. It's one of the things I'm for."

"Not everyone hurts you," she said, because she felt this was true. Over the years she'd watched probably hundreds of people having fun with the whore--kicking it, throwing things at it, brutally fucking its various holes until it twitched and cried out in pain--but there were plenty of people who used it perfunctorily, or even gently and affectionately.

"Everyone does," it said firmly. "Yeah, first of all there's people who don't get off on causing pain, which is less than you'd think. Less than half of people, I'd say. Maybe most people don't _need_ it, but when it comes to a whore, who will take whatever they dish out and not hold it against them, they get creative pretty quickly. But there's people who really don't have a thing for it, who wouldn't consider it at all--but they still have something to gain from hurting me."

"What do they have to gain from it if they don't enjoy it?" Effie asked.

It clicked its tongue, thinking. "It's not exactly that they don't enjoy it," it said. "Well, I guess maybe they don't enjoy it. But everyone is mad about something in life, and if they didn't have me, they'd be taking it out on _people_ \--their coworkers, their husband or wife, their kids, people who cut them off in traffic. You don't how many women have torn my cunt open while complaining about how someone accidentally bumped a cart into their cart at the supermarket. It's not a sex thing, but everyone's angry, and that anger has to go _somewhere_."

Effie considered this. She wasn't sure if she believed it, but it was a lot older than her. She didn't know how old, exactly, but that wasn't the point. It had gotten to know so many people from a vantage point that was both intimate and distant.

"I'm kind of like a sponge," the whore continued, "for all the bad things inside people. Or a magnet. Having me available brings it out of them, and that's a good thing, because I'm a safe place to express that stuff."

It looked so sincere as it said this--its bright eyes were shining--that Effie couldn't help reaching out and rubbing her knuckles along the side of its head, above its hear--she might have tucked its hair back, if it had hair.

"Aw," it said again, it closed its eyes and titled its head toward her fingers. She kept petting it and it sighed happily, which almost made Effie bite off a piece of the inside of her mouth. It must have had a sixth sense for that kind of thing because it opened its eyes and said sternly, "That's enough of that, shrimp." It straightened its head up.

She pulled her hand back, self-conscious. It was giving her a sly look. "Well, I'm not like either of those things you said," she protested. "I don't want to hurt you because I'm mad--I told you that before. It's stupid, you're my friend and you haven't done anything bad to me. And I wouldn't just start hurting you during--sex, for no reason--"

She stopped, a little stunned. Somehow she had never thought much about what it would be like to have sex with the whore. Of course she'd do it, when she turned eighteen. Everyone at lease tried it, even though some people enjoyed using whores more than others. Some people turned out to be asexual, and some people were normal, but they just didn't like going where everyone else had been. They didn't have the stomach for it.

She thought about the whore a lot. It was practically--well, it _was_ her best friend. Her parents even teased her about it. She thought about what it would think of everything that happened to her, if it would like her jokes, if it was cold, if it would let her put sunscreen on it. She wondered what color its hair would be if it wasn't shaved.

But she hadn't really thought about using it to get herself off. The closest she'd come was vengeance fantasies about the type of person who interrupted her conversations with the whore by just coming up and glaring at her until she went away instead of saying excuse me. Once she was eighteen she could say, "Oh, I'm sorry, but was actually about to fuck it myself."

"Anyway," she said, "I'm just not _like_ that. Do you honestly think I am?"

"No," it said, looking at her steadily and giving her the sense, for the thousandth time in her life, that it could see all the way inside her.

She quailed a little bit, because--well, she knew, somehow, what it knew about her, what t was going to tell her about herself. She didn't exactly know the details, because she'd never thought it through, and she didn't know all the words it would use, but she knew what it was going to say.

"You don't want to hurt me because it's convenient," the whore explained. "You _especially_ want to hurt me, You'd want to hurt me even if it wasn't convenient for you at all--even if I was all clean and nice back there, even if nobody had ever hurt me before. You'd want to be the first. Because you like me, and you want to hurt someone you like. That's the kind of person you are. And there's nothing wrong with that," it continued. "There's all kinds of people, and people like all kinds of things. I think you're the kind of person for whom liking someone and hurting them are two sides of the same coin. I could be wrong, of course, but I've known a lot of people. I'm usually right about these things. Do you think I'm wrong?"

"I..." Effie said. It was nearly smirking. "No. You're not wrong."

"I didn't think so," it said. Just as suddenly, its face was solemn. "Effie, you're not upset about this, are you? You understand there's nothing to be upset about. When you're old enough, we'll figure out what you like to do, and you can do whatever you want to me. It's not bad of you to want it, and you won't be hurting my feelings or upsetting me, no matter what you do."

"I'm not upset," she said. "If you don't think I should be. I"m sorry for looking at your body like that when you were talking to me."

"It's okay," it said. It bit its lip, then smiled. "Okay, shoot. What were you thinking about doing, when you were looking at me?"

"Oh, Effie said. "Well--some of your scars are initials, aren't they? People cut their initials into you?"

"Yeah. Frat boys, mostly. Surprisingly few people I'd actually consider friends. And surprisingly bad penmanship."

"It's mostly on your--your ass, and your hips."

"Yeah." She struggled to speak for a moment, and it smiled again, but it didn't push her. It waited.

"Well," Effie said, "this is a stupid question but--if somebody--" She looked intently at the fountain, focusing on one particular dolphin. "if someone spread your ass open, and they--cut you, or they hurt you right next to the hole, do--"

"Oh, I see," it said. "You mean so every time someone fucked me in the back hole, or maybe even when they just held onto my ass when they're fucking the front, they'd be hitting me right where you'd hurt me? _Effie_. " It snorted. She risked a quick, shy glance at its face. "I hit the nail on the head with you. You want to be hurting me in a _special_ way, don't you? You want to be hurting me even when you can't be there in person to do it."

"Maybe," she said.

It snorted " _Maybe_. Well, I have some bad news for you--I haven't had much sensation back there for a long time. But there's other places where I _am_ very sensitive, and when the time comes I'll give you the grand tour, okay? Show you the most interesting places to hurt me?"

"That sounds nice," Effie said. She tried to keep her face and body impassive, because thoughts of this were already starting to unspool vividl in her mind. Where was it sensitive? Was there anywhere it might be relatively untouched? "What were you talking to me about, anyway?" she asked.


	5. Chapter 5

It turned out it was talking about the annual strawberry festival. It wanted to know if Effie had seen the local folksinger ("if you can call him that") who always performed at the festival and, according to the whore, always played for at least an hour longer than he was scheduled to. "I _like_ the opportunity to see live music," it insisted, "and I'm not a snob--really, I'm not--but he couldn't carry a tune in a bucket, and while there are plenty of holes I don't mind bleeding out of, my ears aren't among them."

She assured it that she would come to the festival and keep it company so it didn't have to face the singing alone. But this didn't end up being in the cards.

She came down for dinner one evening to see her parents sitting at the table and staring at her. She looked at her watch to see if she was late. She hadn't even realized her mom had gotten home yet, much less started making dinner. In fact, there wasn't any food on the table.

"We're getting takeout!" her mom said. "Anything you want. Ask and you shall receive." Effie realized that this was exactly what her mom had said a few years ago before telling Effie that her hermit crab, which she had forgotten to feed, would have to be buried in the backyard.

"What happened?" she asked.

"It's your friend," her dad said. "The whore. It--someone hurt it. Someone _attacked_ it," he clarified, correctly guessing that Effie was about to say, _so_?

"Attacked it," she repeated. She imagined a masked murderer coming at the thing with a chainsaw.

"You're making things worse," her mom said to her dad. "I wouldn't say anyone _attacked_ it," she continued to Effie. "Someone was using it, someone who wasn't from around here, and he wasn't being careful. He damaged it, which is illegal, of course. The whore is for everybody. You can't just go and set the social security building on fire because that's what makes you feel good, and you can't--well, you can't do what this guy did."

"I have to go see it," Effie said. "You have to drive me to the stocks--I can't walk there fast enough to get there before they put it away for the night."

"Effie, it's not _in_ the stocks," her dad said. "It's in the hospital."

"Well, then, you have to take me to the hospital."

"They won't let you see it. Only city officials."

"How long is it going to be there?"

"I'm not sure," her mom said. "Right now, they're just trying to figure out if-- _how_ they can restore it to full usability. Once it's gotten emergency treatment, they'll send it to its house to rest. Depending on how long it'll be out for they might have to get a substitute whore for the town. I hope they will, anyway. Otherwise people will have to go out of town and use the nearby whores, which would cause a lot of traffic congestion."

"It's horrible that someone would do this," her dad said. He got up and opened the drawer where they kept the takeout menus. "It can't defend itself. Who knows if it would defend itself even if it could? It has such a nice personality."

"No, it yelled for help," her mom said. "People came to help, at least. Things would have been much worse if it hadn't done that."

"I want ravioli from the pizza place," Effie said, "with meat sauce." Her stomach was twisting with distress and--pride, somehow, affection, gratitude that the whore had stood up for itself and called on people to protect it. Of course people wanted to protect it.

Somehow, as loud and assertive as the whore was--as consistently as it always stood up for things--Effie found herself frightened that it might not stand up for itself, or that if it did people might not hear it. It hadn't even happened but the terrible scenario was so clear in her mind--what if, when it yelled for help, to let people know that it was being _damaged_ , people thought it was just in pain, and they didn't realize what was happening? This was stupid, because it was going to be okay--it just needed to recover--but she was overwhelmed by how life would have been, and how she would have felt, if it hadn't been okay at all.

It recovered faster than anyone would have expected. One of the custodians, Horace, told Effie the whore was in a foul mood, arguing that it was already ready to go back to work when it clearly wasn't. "Did it say anything about me?" she asked, and then she felt stupid. She'd confronted Horace at the deli of the grocery store, where they were both waiting for sandwiches. She turned around and pretended to be examininga row of fruit sodas in the cooler.

Horace didn't say anything--of course the whore wasn't thinking about Effie at a time like this. Effie reached out and wiped some of the condensation off the front of the cooler with her finger. "Hey," Horace said. "I'll tell it you asked about it. It won't be long before t's back. And--"

Effie looked back at him; he crinkled his face up, thinking.

"You can't give it a present, 'cause it's not allowed to own anything--and you can't bring it cake or candy, because it doesn't eat solid foods. And if you--" There was a pause as he thought some more, counting off on his fingers. "Stuff like whipped cream, frozen yogurt, Sno-cones, cotton candy--or, like, a vanilla bean Starbucks frappuccino, with a straw--or almond bubble tea--or sweetened condensed milk--well--"

"Well?" Effie said.

They called Horace up to the counter and he got his sandwich. He began unwrapping it as he walked toward the door. "Well," he said to Effie, "guess that stuff isn't _recommended_ , either, except between you and me, _some_ of its staff don't always remember about the policies--there's so much to keep track of--and it's got a real sweet tooth."

She ended up bringing it strawberry sorbet, because it had missed the strawberry festival. Only two weeks had gone by since the attack, but the whore had pretty much demanded to be reinstated, and besides no one wanted to deal with the bureaucracy involved in getting a substitute. If this was what what it wanted so much, it could have it.

"It's _fine_. Don't worry," it was grumpily telling the woman who was fucking it with a strap-on. "They have me on so many opioids you could drive a car into me and I wouldn't feel it. You'd have to do a lot worse to put a strain on me. Not that," it added, a little more cheerfully, "not that you're not welcome to try."

Effie took a minute to collect herself, sitting down on the lip of the fountain. She was holding the paper cup of strawberry sorbet and she suddenly felt worried it would melt. Why hadn't she thought about the possibility of the whore being busy when she arrived with its food? She should have brought a can of whipped cream, or something else that could wait to be eaten. She felt somewhat shy and self conscious about talking to it, too. She hadn't gone two weeks without seeing it in years. She swung her legs, watching the woman finish up with it.

The woman wasn't being that hard on it, but it was grimacing. Effie felt a sudden wave of irritation that she tried to suppress. Maybe the whore couldn't control everyone's behavior--but there were people willing to be careful with it, if it would just ask. If it would just not ask for the opposite.

When the woman walked away from the whore and Effie went up to it, she forgot about being mad and just got embarrassed again. "Hey, whore," she said, walking up to it sideways like an idiot.

"Effie!" it said. She got down on her knees in front of it and put her hand on its face; then she put down the cup of sorbet so she could touch it with her other hand too. It stared at her. She felt even more embarrassed; she was just holding its face in her palms, for no reason, stroking its cheeks with her thumbs. It had those startling eyes, clear and light, like you could see all the way to the bottom if it wanted you to.

It didn't say anything. She dropped her hands. "Um, how are you?" she asked.

"Same old, same old," it said.

"Really?"

"As always, that's none of your business. Horace said you brought me a treat, so cough it up."

"Here," Effie said, holding the cup up. "It's sorbet. Strawberry, since you missed the strawberry festival." She squeezed the cup so the sorbet bulged from the top; it leaned down to suck it into its mouth.

It swallowed, thoughtfully. It sighed. Its mouth and the skin around it were crimson and shiny. It narrowed its eyes. "You're too young to be getting off on this, shrimp," it said. Effie laughed out loud; she petted the back of its neck, pushing the sorbet at its mouth. It took another bite, swallowed, and pulled its head back, saying a little warily, "This _is_ good, though. What is it? Sorbet?" Effie nodded. It took another bite, holding the sorbet in its mouth for a second before it swallowed. "I like this. Why haven't Horace and the nurses been bringing me this at home? No wonder it took two weeks for me to get better." It brought its head forward eagerly to take another bite, and Effie felt something blooming viciously in her gut, pleasure and fascination, which she did her best to quash before the thing told her off again.

Still she wished she had infinite sorbet to feed it. She barely prevented herself from drifting into a heady daze--she had to keep reminding herself that she wouldn't be able to keep feeding it if it noticed her enjoying herself too much. It seemed to happen in a matter of seconds that the whole paper cup was squashed flat and all the sorbet had been squeezed into the whore's mouth.

"There," it said, licking its lips--Effie looked away as fast as she could--"yeah, that was a good choice, Eff. Thank you. They should have been giving me that in an IV at the hospital."

"Do you want me to get you some more?" she asked.

It blinked at her. "No, that's ridiculous. I'll get fat." It laughed uproariously.

"Really?"

"I'm just kidding. Yeah, get me some more. I deserve it after the month I've had."

Effie was up and on her way back to the creamery before it even finished its sentence.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> UNFINISHED CHAPTER

By the time she turned eighteen, she'd gotten in the habit of sitting with it in the evenings, just talking until it got taken away at seven. It wasn't on purpose; the two of them would just start arguing about something. Or it would demand to have a movie described to it. "Everyone's talking about the twist but they keep saying no spoilers. Tell me everything and don't leave anything out." Effie would get popcorn and let the thing smell it--for realism--and sometimes she'd use a newspaper review to jog her memory. "That's _it_?" the thing invariably exclaimed in horror when the twist was revealed. "People will swallow anything these days, won't they?"

"Look who's talking," Effie would say daringly and, hopefully, it would laugh until it squawked.

So lots of times she'd watched its current evening custodian, Clarice, unlocking it from the stocks and hosing it down. There was a whole set of positions it had to get into so it could be thoroughly cleaned--not to put too fine a point on it, but come got _everywhere_ \--and Clarice was supposed to verbally order the positions so she could check them off on a chart, but the thing knew all of them so usually it and Clarice would just talk about their days while it moved around and she sprayed it everywhere it needed to be sprayed. Effie had felt the water and it never seemed all that warm, but the thing was apparently used to the cold; it rarely stiffened or flinched, just moved from position to position--kneeling and holding its ass open with its fingers, lying on its back with its legs spread. Effie had gotten worked up the first time she saw its breasts which--well for one thing they were surprisingly beautiful, and for another they were scratched and splintered from spending all day pressed against the plank. And then it had started rubbing them the way it rubbed its chafed arms and neck, and then it had rolled its eyes at her, and--well, anyway, she had gotten over that. Now she just listened to its sympathetic murmurs and wisecracks as Clarice complained. Clarice had three kids, and she was always mad at at least two of them.

When the whore was cleaned up, Clarice would take her pants off, lie down on her jacket, and have it eat her out. This was quite a perk of the job since it was pretty much impossible to do with the whore in the stocks. Clarice always talked her head off when the thing was between her legs, calling it all kinds of names and twisting her fingers in the grass. It looked invested, too, slurping at her with is eyes closed and its bruised ass wiggling in the air.

Afterwards Clarice would get dressed while the thing crouched, smiling at her, and she'd wipe its face with a Kleenex. Then it was time for it to stand up, have its hands chained behind its back, and be led off to its quarters.

"Clarice isn't really in shape to catch you if you tried to run away," Effie said one afternoon.

The whore blinked at her. "What the hell, Effie. She's had three kids!"

"i wasn't trying to be mean," Effie said. It raised its eyebrows at her. It was true she wasn't trying, but it _was_ unlike her to say something like that. She was probably a little jealous of Clarice, and all the custodians.

"She doesn't need to catch me. I'd never try to run away," it said.

"Then what are the chains for?"

"They're for me, duh," it said, rolling its eyes at her. "Well--and for the custodians. Just to remind me and everyone else of what I am."

It had such a holier than thou look that Effie was a little offended. The reasoning behind this didn't seem obvious to her at all. "What would be the harm in you just walking home normally?" she asked. "Even without Clarice or Horace, since you're not going to run away?"

It sighed and flared its nostrils.

"Sorry you think I'm dumb," Effie said.

"Don't fish for compliments," it said. "It's scientifically proven, it's not goodfor whores to be to be unrestrained for more than a few minutes and it can have a detrimental effect on custodians, too, or anyone who works closely with us. Or even civilian casualties like you."

"I'm a what?"

It grinned at her. "Come on, you know. You're one of my civilian casualties, aren't you? I know you're about to jump out of your skin waiting to turn eighteen so you can use me. And you don't have a boyfriend or a girlfriend, either."

"Because no one likes me," Effie said without much concern as to whether this was true.

"Because you don't like them. You like whores," it said. "Someone like you comes along every so often. It's a phase, usually, kids who are shy or adults who've had a whole string of bad experiences. They go through a period where only whores do it for them."

"I'm _not_ shy," Effie said.

"Sure you are."

"How am I shy?"

"You like whores better than people. Q. E. D. Now don't get offended," it continued, talking over her attempt to respond. "There's nothing wrong with shy people. I certainly like you all--otherwise who else would I have to talk to? Besides people wanting to tell me how the Illuminati are going to suck all of us up through our toilets. I don't even _use_ a toilet. What good is that information to me?"


End file.
